Want to listen to porn stars, models, poets, and other amazing human beings talk about overcoming their body issues? Check out The Bawdy Love Podcast.

My first blog post on here was in 2008, and it was my mother’s recipe for mushroom rice. Yeaup, this used to be a food blog called West Coast Winos. Then I got asked to write a sex blog for Curve magazine, and I jokingly called myself Queerie Bradshaw. The name stuck.

There was a bit of time when I combined the two and blogged as Sinful Misadventures, a site that covered all 7 deadly sins, but it soon became apparent that I was not a food blogger.

Sex was my specialty for a reason: I’m really good at talking about sex.

But as I got farther into blogging, speaker, and doing interviews, I realized that what I’m really passionate about is not sex perse – although I am very passionate about that – but the things that went along with sex, what my dear friend Kate McCombs calls “sex adjacent” topics.

What I really love talking about is feeling comfortable in your body and being able to know – and communicate to your partners – your needs, desires, wants, and pleasures.

I love the major impact this blog has had on introducing people to quality sex toys, important social justice topics, and fun happenings in the sex industry. It has been an honor to speak across the nation as Queerie Bradshaw, and meet some of you in person.

But Queerie Bradshaw was created at a time when I was pretending to be someone I wasn’t: an unemotionally attached sex blogger. And try as I might, I couldn’t get the depth I wanted in life from that character, or this blog.

After my brother died, I spent a lot of time thinking about my own mortality, and wondering what I wanted to put into the world. The answer shouted to me from my gut, yelling so loudly I couldn’t ignore it.

I want to help people love their bodies, heal past emotional trauma, and embrace the pleasure in life they deserve.

For awhile, I did that here at QueerieBradshaw.com, but it felt out of sync with the more overtly sexualized and raunchy (in a wonderful way) history of this site. While I still love the things I’ve written here, it’s time for me to grow, expand, and move on.

Starting today, QueerieBradshaw.com will be an archived site. The old blog posts will remain for your reading pleasure, but all new posts will be at LaurenMarieFleming.com.

As a blogger, shedding your famous URL for a lesser known one is super scary (what about my Google ranking?! How will people find my work?! What if I lose every reader?!). But personally, it feels so right, embracing my own name, moving more towards my goals of helping others feel confident and comfortable in their bodies.

With the new site also comes some exciting new ways to connect with my readers, including:

I love it when they start to dishevel. Makes me want to tangle her hair, pull at her dress, smear what’s left of her lipstick.

I think Sinclair Sexsmith has entered my mind. This is exactly what I want a butch to think when we go on a date. I want them to appreciate all of the hard work I’ve put into making myself up, then I want them to fuck it all up in a wild rage of (consensual) lust.

But Sinclair knows I want this. Sinclair knows what they’re doing to me.

What is glaringly apparent reading Sweet and Rough: Sixteen Stories of Queer Smut is that Sinclair Sexsmith knows lust, desire, and longing, and better than that, Sinclair knows what to do with those emotions, knows how to use them against the femme-fatale, the soft butch boi, the reader lying in her bed, wishing she could jump into the pages of this book with them all.

Created from the fantasies of both Sinclair and the readers of SugarButch.net, Sweet and Rough is a wonderfully voyeuristic look into the mind of a sadistic butch top. It’s less rough and more sweet than I expected from Sinclair, but maybe that’s because the book’s preface – itself a great essay worth reading about kinky erotic fantasies versus actual sexual relationships – prepared me for something more risqué.

Some of it is ‘problematic,’ and I wouldn’t claim otherwise – but they still have so much value, and can jump-start our erotic engines or show us how much more can be incorporated into our erotic lives.

Still, these stories are delicious and enticing, making me deeply regret missing that one night Sinclair and I were supposed to split a hotel room while speaking at a conference at Yale. The sapiosexual in me loves the way Sinclair makes conversations foreplay, subtly bringing in discussions on gender and identity without distracting from the erotic flow.

She’s more androgynous than I am, but still more boyish than Brett, who calls herself a subtle femme. “May take a second glance, but it’s there,” she told me.

She has an eager and excited edge to her voice, and presses her leg further into my lap, twisting her torso a little to look more directly at me, opening her thighs.”I know what you mean – but if men begin to have butch identity, does that invalidate it for the women who have to fight so hard to claim it?”

Whether butch, femme, or something in between, the reader is transported into Sinclair’s world and taken along the journey to sexual satiation. A great collection of erotic literature, I highly suggest picking up a copy.

Want to see what others had to say about this book? I’m just one person in a line of (dare I call us all stellar and amazing?) bloggers on Sinclair’s virtual book tour. Check out what the others had to say about Sweet and Rough:

September 22 – butchontap.com

September 23 – alphaharlot.com

September 25 – wholesexlife.com

September 28 – dearbutchlovefemme.wordpress.com

September 29 – whyarepeopleintothat.com

September 30 – lesbrary.com

October 1 – queeriebradshaw.com

October 2 – domme-chronicles.com

October 3 – writingdirty.com

October 4 – bdswain.com

October 6 – thecsph.org

October 7 – makesexbetter.com

October 8 – andreshaktixxx.com

Have I convinced you to buy the book? Great! Go to Sinclair’s site and buy it directly, where they get more profits from it. (There are also links on that page to Amazon, iBooks, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords, if you prefer to buy it somewhere else.)

Want to help Sinclair out? Read the book then leave a review on Amazon. Whether you like Amazon or not, it really helps a book to have positive reviews and high-star ranking on there.

Lastly, remember when Sinclair Sexsmith and I answered your questions live about the sexual politics of BDSM? It was great and we recorded it for you.

On October 2, 2012, a team of surgeons at City of Hope medical center sliced open my brother and saw a body wracked with cancer. Nevertheless, they kept cutting, determined to remove what they could of this invasive leech eating him from within.

For twenty hours, my family sat in the waiting room, updated every few hours by doctors or nurses, trying to keep our spirits up and hope alive, a nearly impossible task when faced with such a terrifying landscape.

There was a harpist keeping us entertained at one point, but mostly it was horribly silent.

The cancer had taken over his neck and face. It had spread into his lymph nodes and lungs. It was determined to take his life.

On November 2, 2012, the cancer won the battle, but I find comfort in knowing that my brother died fighting. When everyone else turned him away, City of Hope medical center lived up to it’s name and gave Andrew a last chance for his otherwise healthy 25 year-old body to fight and fight hard.

Why City of Hope?

Their cutting edge bone marrow transplant procedures saved my father’s life from leukemia in 1995. Their state of the art research helps other facilities around the world better their treatments, including the one that saved my mother’s life from breast cancer in 2008. And their skilled surgeons were the last chance my brother had for survival two years ago today.

Beyond that, their facilities are stunningly peaceful for patients, they offer financial assistance to those who can’t afford their treatment, and for 10+ years it has been chosen as the best cancer hospital in the USA.

Hell, I love this place so much, I got a modified version of their logo tattooed on my ankle.

Robin Williams killed himself today and my heart keeps breaking over and over again, not for the man I never met, but for the struggle I know too well.

My depression hit me like a brick wall around the same time I started puberty. Once a month, a giant gorilla sits on my chest making it unbearably hard to breathe, moving away only when I stop bleeding. I’ve tried pills, but they come with their own issues, issues that only exacerbate the situation for me. There’s not much for me to do but wait out the flood of emotions, grasping onto any life preserver I can find, holding on to my partner, family and friends for support.

“But you’re such a happy person!” people say when they hear about my struggle. “You’re so full of life!” And they’re right, I am. But for every light there is dark, and with every manic upswing in my life, there is a depressive downfall.

I remember hearing somewhere years ago that Robin Williams suffered from deep bouts of depression and not being surprised. I too was outgoing, loud, rambunctious, full of energy, and horribly depressed all at once. Robin Williams gave my fourteen year old self hope that I wasn’t alone, that someone else out there knew what it was like to be at once happy and sad, an introvert hiding in an extrovert’s body, someone who knew what it was like to battle the quick change from exuberance to exhaustion.

Today, Robin Williams lost that battle, and I weep for his family, for my family, for the families of friends who have killed themselves, for every family who has had to worry about their loved ones falling so low into the deep end that they never resurface again.

Sometimes, the most exuberant of us are the ones suffering the darkest demons.

If you or a loved one are battling that sadness, know that people out there know what it’s like. Know that there are many of us, on and offline, that are here with you in solidarity, any day, every day. If you don’t know where to start for help, try SuicidePreventionHotline.org or 1-800-273-8255.

Everyone in Alaska has a plane, at least that’s what it feels like as the skies fill up with single-engine floaters every weekend, leaving from watery runways in town and landing in lakes far from here, places without roads or rails. I hear the propellers go by and wish I could take off with them, flying far away from my home and escaping into the wilderness.

Then I realize that is exactly what I have done.

Relaxing on a long hike. Don’t you love my turquoise hiking boots?!

If you ever get the opportunity to spend three weeks housesitting your friend’s cabin in the woods of Alaska, I highly suggest you take it.

My friend’s picturesque cabin.

Added bonus if it comes with a well-trained black lab named Chula.

Chula is an over-achiever.

I did not take for granted this opportunity I was afforded, and I savored every last millisecond of the sharp mountain skyline, bright blue glaciers, wildflower-filled meadows, and serene sea inlet that greeted me every morning. I spent my days searching my soul, adventuring past my point of comfort, and exploring what this world had to offer me.

With Alex by my side, I grew up and out, built muscles in my legs and brain, and found clarity in my life goals. We lived simply, mostly off the land that my friend had prepared for us, and I spent less money this whole summer than I spend in a week in my life back in Southern California.

Fresh and free vegetables made me a happy camper.

Most substantially of all, I wrote. I wrote so much. Each encounter with the natural world refilled my soul’s fuel, sparking my muse and relighting my heart’s candle.

I finished a substantial draft of my memoir, taking me so close to publication date.

Tina Horn and I started work via my random Internet connection on our upcoming guide to queer sex, and

Epiphora and I put the finishing touches on our Business of Blogging about Sex class, which is very close to selling out, making both of us jump with joy over how excited you all are to learn from us.

Best of all, I outlined what is next for Lauren Marie Fleming, where I’m taking my life, my writing and my readers.

There are major things afoot, folks! Massive happy happenings on the verge of exploding, and I cannot wait until I can share them all with you, cannot wait for the day I can send you all a link to my new website (oh yes, something exciting this way comes!), published memoir, erotica anthology, queer sex guide, and all the fun things that are in store – for me as a writer, for the people I help publish over at Frisky Feminist Press, and for you, my beloved readers who have traveled so far with me over the years and who I can’t wait to guide through these next adventures.

I’m at a fork in the road, and both trails lead to very exciting, beautiful places.

But Alaska has taught me that the most stunning objects take years to develop and grow, so I’m making a conscious effort to not rush my life, professionally or personally. Which means many of these exciting developments won’t be announced for months.

Did you know snow takes 10 years to become glacial ice?

I can, however, tell you about Dear Friend, my new endeavor to send all of you intimate letters on a regular basis! I’ll have an official post all about it tomorrow here on the blog, but if you want to sign up now, just follow this link and be sure to check the box for “Dear Friend”. (Please note, this is different from the Queerie Bradshaw mailing list, so if you’re on that you still need to sign up for this one to get my letters.)

Whew. I’m at once exhausted and enthused by all these travels, and the hard work – and even harder play – they have inspired. I encourage you all to go out and find a bit of natural serenity in your life today, whether it’s a walk in Central Park, a hike in the woods, some time spent planting a kitchen herb garden, or hugging your cat, connect with something technology hasn’t touched today.

My first blog post was on MySpace. Yes, MySpace. That’s how old I am. And that’s how far I’ve come as a blogger.

QueerieBradshaw.com is celebrating its sixth year this year and in that time I’ve learned a hell of a lot of useless information about blogging. But, I’ve also learned some very important tips that have propelled me from simple recreational blogger to full-time owner of an online business.

As we build content for this much-anticipate course, we want to answer all of your questions and focus on the areas where you personally need advice or assistance.

To help us with that, we would love it if you could please fill out a very brief one-question form about what you want to know about blogging at goo.gl/M5F5BE.

As a thank you for your help, we’ve provided a coupon code for $75 off the class and a link to some of the early content we have for the course, complete with tips on how to make the most of an affiliate account and how to use social media tools without being a tool.

Want to take this course but can’t afford it?

Frisky Feminist Press is dedicated to making education accessible for all, so we provide payment plans and scholarships for all our classes. If you’re interested in the scholarship for The Business of Blogging September 2014 online class, visit FriskyFeminist.com/sexbloggingclass.

The Academy of Sex Education was started to provide a space outside of retail establishments at which sex educators – like me – could teach students – like you – about sexual pleasure and health without shame, stigma, discrimination or pressure to buy a product.

There are branches of the Academy of Sex Education in New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Portland, so if you’re near those towns, check them out (if you’re not in those towns, or even if you are, check out FriskyFeminist.com, the site I created to bring educational classes and guides about sex to those who can’t come to workshops for whatever reason).

Louise and Kate are teaching this workshop all across the country, so follow them on Twitter (@Katecom, @LouiseLaBouche) to find out how you can get in on the class (SF, LA, NYC and more!).

For a teaser, here’s a bit of what I learned about my vagina during their workshop:

My G-Spot feels like the roof of my mouth, the rest of my vagina like the sides of my cheeks (a proper analogy I’d never heard before).

My vagina has a thing for Kiwi accents (Louise is from New Zealand and I found myself excited when she talked).

I can massage my vulva using the vulcan hand greeting position (you gotta see Kate do this, she’s a geek and it’s amazing).

I learned a lot (which is impressive because I already knew a lot about the vagina, so that shows how information packed this class was) and the best part of the workshop was the vast wealth of knowledge Kate and Louise brought to the question and answer section.

Kate and Louise being adorable together at the SexGeekdom Portland meet-up the night before their workshop.

So, if you get a chance to see them, or any of the other workshops at the branches of the Academy of Sex Education, I highly suggest you take it, and come with questions!

Also, if you’re looking to meet other sex geeks like you, check out SexGeekdom, a community ran by Kate McCombs with meet-ups all over the world for people interested in learning more about sex (without any pressure to have it).

As we all know, I friggin’ love me some strap-ons. I love them so much, I wrote a whole guide on how to choose one (it’s free over at FriskyFeminist.com).

So, when Good Vibrations asked me to be a judge in its #StrapOnSelfie contest, I peed my pants a little with excitement.

I get to look at photos of people in strap-ons and call it work!!

My life is awesome. But, as always, you all are the key to making it awesomeyer. I NEED YOU! To snap photos of yourself in your strap-ons and post them online for me to judge.

Yes, I am going to judge you, but only in an amazing, positive, body-affirming way. Because you are all magnificently good-looking, especially when strapping it on.

My fellow judges are Jiz Lee, Q and Sophia St. James, all gorgeous people themselves. I’m surrounded by beauty and I LOVE IT.

Best of all, if you win GoodVibes #StrapOnSelfie contest, you win a harness and cock! It’s a win-win for all of us.

The contest runs from June 16-22, so get to snapping photos and posting them online using the hashtag #StrapOnSelfie.

If you’re too shy to post something to social media, or if your life prevents you from sharing something like that online, please feel free to send your selfie to me at Info[at]QueerieBradshaw[dot]com. I’ll send you back a lovely note telling you how proud I am of your sexiness.

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